South Beach Diet Grilled Chicken and Vegetables

With a cool breeze and a cool day, we stoked up the grill tonight for a South Beach Diet Recipe.  Of all the diets I've ever been on, this diet has the best recipes.  Tonight's consisted of boneless, skinless chicken breasts grilled with tons of veggies:  mushrooms, peppers, zucchini, summer squash, and anise.  We also grilled two small ears of corn.  Veggies were tossed with a mixture of olive oil, parsley, garlic, basil and some fresh oregano from the garden.   Enough for two nights.  We're having strawberries later this evening.  We've already had orange juice, tomatoes, banana, and olives.  Lots of fruits and veggies.  Not cheap but the peppers and mushrooms were on sale, as was the corn and strawberries.  Do plan your menus around the newspaper specials and you'll save lots.  
Remember, fresh food is better for you than processed food.  Costs more and takes more time, but at least you're standing or walking in the kitchen and not sitting on your butt.  Think of the advantages. 


I was in Atlanta last week, where the kitchen contained nothing but "light" vanilla soy milk and a ton of bagels.  Some peanut butter and honey wheat bread.  I cooked potato pancakes, tacos and a cheese omelet.  I made it with Mexican eheese blend and Parmesan and it was dynamite.  Making your own tacos is totally delicious and healthy.  We ate some Indian food in Roswell that was spectacular.  Best Indian food I've had in years.  A little place with too few people.   Too bad.  


 We drove back from NYC yesterday and stopped at Wilson's Barbecue in Fairfield, CT.  Pulled Pork to die for.  Potato salad had no sugar, a huge plus, and the coleslaw was tasty.  But oh, that pulled pork.  Mega-yum!  


The Cheeseparer

Pork and Meatball Soup

I found this recipe in Saveur.  We got 4 servings out a half a pound of ground pork.  And they were delicious, too. 
Romanian Meatball Soup


The recipe calls for common, i.e. cheap ingredients like onion, carrot, celery, canned tomatoes, etc.   It also calls for 2 Tablespoons of paprika.  I use 1/2 t. hot paprika, 1 T. smoked paprika, and 2 t. regular paprika.  The hot paprika (be careful) gives the soup a lot of zing.  Red peppers were on sale at the market, so this was an excellent week to make the soup.  The rice gave the meatballs a nice texture.  We thought this was a keeper. 

Men Of A Certain Age

This post doesn't deal with frugality so much as keeping your life in order,  Lately, some men I know have died:  expectedly, unexpectedly, and sort of expectedly.  All of these elderly gentlemen were widowed or (most of them) divorced.    Guys, if you are over 70, toss the porn collection.  Get rid of the "conquest" scrapbook with nude photos of your past and present lady friends.  Your children do not want to see this when they clean out your stuff.  You probably have by far too much stuff that you should think about getting rid off.  Do it today.  If you must keep photos, put them in a password protected file on your computer.  Memorize the password. 

When you become old, don't collect more stuff.  Begin divesting yourself.  Get rid of all the junk.  You have too much.  My father (who did not have one of these funky "collections,") filed his junk mail.  Yup, a file cabinet with junk mail.  Haband slacks comes to mind.  Why?

My folks moved a lot, but they had eye drops dating to 1941.  Can you imagine?  Luziers cosmetics from when we lived in Denver back in the day.  A moth eaten mink stole.  Yucko!  In the heat of a Phoenix June, I got up at 4:00 a.m. and worked until 9:00 when it just became too hot.  Cleaning stuff out.  It was brutal.  At least, I didn't encounter evidence of anyone's sex life. 

Toss it!  Burn it!  Shred it!  We had a neighbor in Illinois, again an aging gent who threw his porn collection out with the trash--three days early.  It also discarded pocket knives, inner tubes and items attractive to young boys.  Every parent in the neighborhood had to look under their kids  mattress and in the back of the closet.   Do NOT put it out with the trash. Think of your neighborhood reputation.  You don't want to be known as "the old porn."

Stuff is just stuff.  It is mortal like us, and you can rid yourself of tons of stuff and still have too much.  We are in the process of cleaning our the home office in our basement.  No porn, but lots and lots of paper.  Lots of paper.  Maybe tons, I don't know.  It's disappearing, little by little. 

By all means if you like, hang on to the valuable antiques, the paintings, the gold jewelry.  Someone will want those.  Books, not so much.  Photos:  organize and label.  Except for the naked lady friends.  Discard those photos, pretty please with sugar. 

Now let's talk about something more fun.  Lake Tacos.  Tomorrow is tacos day.